Red Stripe Jamaican Lager | Desnoes & Geddes Limited

0 characters.
We love reviews! Turn your rating into one with ≥ 150 characters. Awesome. Thanks for the review!

In English, explain why you're giving this rating. Your review must discuss the beer's attributes (look, smell, taste, feel) and your overall impression in order to indicate that you have legitimately tried the beer. Nonconstructive reviews may be removed without notice and action may be taken on your account.

Notes / Commercial Description:
In 2012, Diageo moved production of the U.S. supply of Red Stripe from Jamaica to the U.S.; The supply is produced by City Brewing Co. in La Crosse, Wisconsin and the Latrobe Brewing Company in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, which was the main brewery for Rolling Rock for over 60 years. Desnoes & Geddes will still make Red Stripe for Jamaica, Brazil, Canada and Europe.

Reviews by jhtipton:

Poured from a 330 ml bottle into a pilsner glass. Mild white foam that seemed to disappear quickly. Plenty of carbonation and some mild lacing. A light golden colour. Not real impressive smell or taste but better than some macrolagers. I seem to remember this more fondly but it was in the sun and I was really thirsty. Malts are weak and not too much else going for it. I guess I should not have drank a DAB prior to this. I do like the stubby painted bottle. Mouthfeel is average, light bodied and some effervescence. Drinkability would be improved by warm sun, blue clear waters, and coconut oil. Will try again, under those circumstances.

More User Reviews:

Presentation: 12oz custom brown "shorty" bottle with a red & white painted label. No freshness date. Label states: "For over 65 years Red Stripe has embodied the spirit, rhythum and pulse of Jamaica and its people." -- hey, I thought that was marijuana that did that?

Appearance: Clear pale gold in colour with lively carbonation and a healthy creamy white lace of a head.

Smell: Faint hop and grain aroma, with a touch of sulfur.

Taste: Light to medium body. Mouthfeel is fairly smooth and creamy on the palate (from the carbonation). Upfront dextrin sweetness followed by a rather lemon/lime hop bitterness, a slight crisp snap and a brush of coarse hop leaf on the palate. Finishes with a light grain dryness and grain/steely flavour.

Notes: Not a bad brew. Refreshing. Goes great with jerked foods or one of my favourites, curried goat. They sell it at Rhythm & Spice Caribbean Grill in Central Sq. Cambridge, MA. An excellent match with all of their food.

Let's face it, the Jamaican's are known best for a substance other than beer. If my recollection is correct, the Rastafarian religion prohibits alcohol (though many of it's purported practitioners don't seem to know this). In any case, it has always been a disappointing beer for the price.

I honestly only tried this beer because i saw it on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and I expected it to taste pretty bad actually. I was mind-blown by how smooth and flavorful this is and it became my favorite beer. It pours a medium gold color, with a smell of sweet grain and a bit of spice. The taste is great with a good level of carbonation and a mix of slightly sweet grain and hops with a smooth, clean, yet dry finish.

Red Stripe has a thick, white head and a very clear, straw appearance. Carbonation is high. Barley is very noticeable in the aroma, and it also has a sort of spicy smell. The taste is quite bready, with grassy aspects. Red Stripe has a nice hop balance. Mouth-feel is light and watery, with the beer finishing crisp and rather wet. Overall, I was very pleased with this beer and would drink it again. Hurray, beer!

Red Stripe is the type of beer that you would see in a grocery store and buy just because the bottles look funky. Besides from the very "retro cheap" look to it, Red Stripe has very little else going for it. It's signature taste has a strong essence of sour grains in it that makes for a very rough taste that does not go down smooth at all. When it comes to the world of cheap beer, this is not an option I would recommend.

Taste is similar to aroma, but less sweet, and less intense/saturated. There is a light, pleasant, bitterness on the finish.

Feel is light/watery, sliding into light/oily, with very fine carbonation tingle, that works with the light bitterness to provide a dry, crisp finish.

AALs are NOT my thing. The aroma is especially what turns me off. HOWEVER....., this stopped just short of that, then surprised me with better flavor, & a nice crisp bitterness, rather than a rounded-off corn sweetness. I actually like it, and wouldn't mind having it again, from time to time.

Had a couple of these with dinner tonight. Poured out of the short little brown bottles and into a standard pint glass. Color is very pale, yellowy and pretty much perfectly transparent. A decent number of little bubbles rising up from the bottom of the glass. Pouring a little quickly produces a big foamy head that shrinks away into a little coating on top after a little while; seems to shrink quicker on a slower pour. Actually leaves a good bit of a lacy trail behind on the sides of the glass as you drink it.

Got a good whiff of "standard beer smell" upon opening and pouring the first bottle, not as much with the second. Once in the glass the smell is pretty faint. What is there isn't anything special; it's a smell that might be a little funky if it was stronger, but as is it's barely noticeable.

Taste, like color and smell, is pretty light. What is there isn't bad at all--a light grain/bread sort of flavor is what I'm picking up the most, and bready lagers are fine by me--it could just use a bit more "oomph." Interestingly, this beer seemed to go VERY nicely with food; I drank about half of my first one (and some of my second one) while eating some pasta with a garlic butter sauce and a little bit of paprika, and the beer seemed to become more flavorful when accompanied by food than it was on its own--as soon as I'd had a bite of food, I started picking up a bit of an almost fruity sort of flavor when I had another drink. A bite of food makes your beer taste better and a drink of beer makes your food taste better... always a good thing.

Feel is... well, it's pretty fizzy and light. Very easy to drink quite a bit of it quickly. Maybe a little *too* fizzy at times, it's not quite soda-like but it's not that far off either.

Overall, I'm surprisingly impressed by this one. It's light, but what is there is far from bad; certainly a few steps up from a glass of plain, flavorless, alcohol-free water. This is definitely a "mealtime beer" rather than a "have one beer at the end of the day" beer. If you feel like having two or three lighter beers with some good food rather than one strong, flavorful beer as a meal unto itself, Red Stripe fills that role nicely... and I can definitely imagine this being a good beer to have around when the weather's a bit warmer and you're chowing down on some sweet and spicy Caribbean-style food. I may have to revisit this one when it warms up a bit, and I'll definitely have to remember to make sure to have a few "at the source" if I ever end up visiting Jamaica at some point.

Not much to say here. The lace lasted...surprise. Otherwise this is just another American adjunct beer. Jamaican style? Give me a break. This tastes like a Pabst Blue Ribbon with a tad more bitterness. It's sad that many of the once notable beers from other countries (Kirin, Harp, Becks, Lowenbrau...I could go on and on) have been bought by corporate America's bean counters and marketing geniuses for their name and past reputation. This is quite possibly the reason for the craft beer surge. We know better. Excuse the rant. Back to Red Stripe. No worse than a Heineken, if you get my drift. American adjunct lager? Go for a Narraganset if you can find one.

Red Stripe is a mild pilsner with a mild flavor and a slight hop bitterness. Don't look for robust flavor. What you find is a crisp refreshing light ale that is great for the hot but breezy sun of Jamaica. Light on the palate and very drinkable.

Red Stripe is a beer that is best drank within it's environment just like Balashi from Aruba is. Reminds me of a less skunky Heineken. The pickin' is slim in Jamaica so this is my top beer choice.

Red Stripe Jamaican Lager. Bottle states that for 75 years the spirit, rhythm and pulse of Jamaica has been embodied in this beer... lets see.

A- Pours a very clean light straw yellow liquid that sends a nicly active thick white head in to action. This head then falls leaving a foamy ring around the glass and slight lace retention.

S- I smell sweet corn malts, sugar and maybe even a little hop stank. Kind of a dull overall scent.

T- At first is the very sugery sweet corn and malts followed by a murky thick grain flavor that is overpowering to the finish. Very light notes of yeasty properties at end of taste.

M-D- Mouthfeel is almost an artifical smooth feeling on my tongue tricking it to allow the beer to go down, almost to thick feel.
I will give this one a plus on drinkablity, it contains nothing that would stop a party beer from happening... its from Jamaica mon!